Yanks floored by nail guns, computers and baseballs
We're very much obliged to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has produced a handy online guide detailing just what kind of damage our accident-prone American cousins managed to sustain between 1991 and 2008. The data is gathered by the "National Electronic Injury Surveillance System" (NEISS) and represents a " …
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My favourite:
"(30-year-old female) PT SAT ON A FUNNY STOOL FOR FIVE HOURS WHILE USING THE COMPUTER AND DEV ELOPED SEVERE LOWER BACK PAIN STRAINED BACK"
I've never heard anyone call it a funny stool before.
Backache..
Presumably a "funny stool" is some weirdly shaped turd.
No wonder she got backache
Re: Funny stool
They are sometimes called "design" stools and can be rather expensive.
That's a bit harsh!
"UNABLE TO REMOVAL BASEBALL, FOREIGN BODY, VAGINA REMOVAL" ... couldn't they have just removed the baseball?
I must be getting old, but.....
I owned an excellent Hilti nailgun in the mid-eighties (I still have it gathering dust somewhere in the garage), and it was virtually impossible to shoot oneself by accident with it. Firstly, it had a trigger disconnect, which meant after every shot you had to release the trigger AND the contact guard AND re-apply pressure on the contact guard before the trigger would engage it would fire again. Secondly, it had a contact guard and you had to push with quite a weight onto the target surface (I used to literally lean my full bodyweight on it!) to depress the guard far enough for it to fire. "Bumping" simply wasn't possible, you had to put that much pressure on the contact guard. Has nailgun design gone that far backwards that saftey design features from a twenty-plus year-old design have been removed? The Hilti wasn't cheap, is it that the market is flooded with cheap designs and better legislation needs to put in around trigger desings to remove cheaper and dangerous designs from the market?
Safe vs. covered
It's Ok, in the States there are disclaimers everywhere so it's your fault if you get injured not using a tool properly. It's probably more expensive to actually make it safe to use!
You're not getting old, people are getting dumber..
Actually, I used to do alot of contracting work with my old man, still do in fact, and they used alot of Hilti gear (both airnailers and ramsets). Never underestimate an employee on how clever they can be at being stupid. I've seen people fire airguns through brand new windows, and you'll look over to see that they've got it up in the air. you spend the rest of the day trying to figure out HOW they managed to fire off something with so many saftey's, but frankly.. they just do. Maybe they'll sit it on their foot (still hooked into the air line), to change a nail roll, they'll somehow manage to push down on it with the safe's off, set the clip, and pull up with the trigger.
honestly, even with bumping being possible, it still takes all kinds of stupid, and poor practice to get hurt.
@Matt Bryant:I must be getting old but...
Thats all very well and good, and Hilti should be commended. But there will still be those who look down the business end whilst simultaneously pressing the trigger, pushing back any contact guard and saying "What the fsk is wrong with this". Perhaps even using the head to push back the contact guard.
A solution maybe to label everything, tag every single object in the US with an impossible to miss warning label. Alternatively remove the warning labels from everything, let's not interfere with evolution eh?
Hilti vs. people
Hilti are to be commended for their admirable attitude to workplace safety. But let's face it, we are living in a world where a bloke can shove a coathanger in his cock. Compared to that, nothing should be a surprise.
you're still young
I don't think it's nailgun design so much as DIY people buying cheaper and cheaper products. Good nailguns still have safety features like you describe.
So really it all just points to people being cheap and stupid.
Don't be too sure
"we are living in a world where a bloke can shove a coathanger in his cock. Compared to that, nothing should be a surprise."
I invite you to consider a quote from the forum that Adrian Jooste mentions further down-thread.
This is an actual, genuine quote about an actual genuine case.
"self-administered hydrofluoric acid enema"
safety first...
When I started work, 20-odd years ago, we had an obligatory heath & safety talk. I still remember being shown the photo of some polycarbonate safety goggles with a Hilti nail stuck dead centre in one lens, the point protruding about 1/8 inch though it, allegedly the result of a nail rebounding off a concrete floor. The victim had a colossal black eye for weeks, from the impact of the goggles against his face.
We were all invited to ponder on what would have happened if he hadn't been wearing the safety glasses.
To this day I can never can work with machinery without my goggles. Lesson learned...
bah! Nanny State... grumble grumble
"...is it that the market is flooded with cheap designs and better legislation needs to put in around trigger desings to remove cheaper and dangerous designs from the market?"
If a nail gun takes more work to operate than a hammer; folks will:
1. Find a nail gun that doesn't.
2. Remove or disable the safety features.
3. Use a hammer.
I suspect that option #2 has been employed in one or more of the cases mentioned. And no, I don't really want the gov. to protect me from myself. The tort / civil liability system in place now is bad enough.
Driving
I'm not sure that "Mother drove vehicle into house" really counts as IT related. Unless she's blaming an ABS failure, of course.
@Vincent
There was a computer desk involved! Obvious, really.
Furthermore
...and since her son would have been shouting 'help!', it was a computer help desk.
Eek!
I remember coming across a med students online forum a few years ago where they would post the strangest things they had to deal with in the ER. Some of the stuff was pretty outrageous. Boredom drives a lot of people to try to fit things where said things should never go. Ever!
hmm
"(34-year-old female) PLAYING A GUITAR,STUMBLED,FELL BACKWARD ONTO UNCAPPED BEER BOTTLE ,WHCH CONTACTED PERINEAL AREA,BOTTLE INTACT DX: COMPLEX VAGINAL LAC"
That's about as beleivable as the old, " i was just vacuuming in the nude when i tripped and fell, getting my penis stuck in the hose"
Inserted a baseball?
One wonders what is going through her mind to allow a boyfriend to insert a baseball in there!!!
(untitled)
One wonders what they planned to do with the bat.
it's not her mind she has to worry about!
Surely the more pressing matter is what is going through her....oops, family website, better stop there.
Don't be a perv!
Quite obviously this was an unfortunate accident involving noticing an untied shoelace while her boyfriend was batting.
It's always something like that.
Quality..
OK, that that deserves today's "I now need to clean my keyboard" award.
Thanks :-)
@Anonymously Deflowered, they were obviously watching The Warrior
Ajax: "I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle."
My favourite
38YOF WENT TO SIT DOWN ON A LOW COMPUTER CHAIR WITH WHEELS,MISSED IT FELL STRIKING TAILBONE;COCCYX FRACTURE
I would place money on the 38YOF being single, overweight, and possibly living in her parent's basement (with a concrete floor).
Oh dear
I'm as much for sexual freedom as the next person, but I always felt that it's best to consider what the people at the A&E/ER will think if it goes wrong and I hurt myself.
Safety glasses for obvious H&S reasons!
Darwinism in action?
Evolution seems to be losing popularity there ... and irony has never been their strong point. So it's strange how they seem to be falling prey to both...
reply
File under "just because you refuse to talk about or acknowledge it doesn't make it go away".
The last one?
A baseball? Thanks El Reg, now I'm going to be pondering the logistics of that all day... HOW?!
Youth of today
> 19 YOM HIT HIS COMPUTER 4-5 TIMES SUSTAINING A FRACTURED HAND
what is the world coming to ... in my day you could fracture your hand with a single hit ... then again it would have been a teletype that you were hitting back in the days where you could hit your keyboard and you would come off worse!
Rubber keys FTW
My old 48k Spectrum got a few fist-poundings back in the day, most often related to loading software from tape. Thanks to its rubber keyboard neither computer or geek came to any harm.
Sir Clive Sinclair - leading the way in computer safety since 1982!
El Reg broke this story months ago
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/brit_gamer/
EW!!
(70-year-old who) PUT A DEODORANT BOTTLE INTO HER VAGINA AND THE CAP IS STILL STUCK INSIDE. DX FOREIGN BODY VAGINA / REMOVED
Just had a mental image of Lee Evans' stetch about a Gran dancing at a wedding ....WAFT!
oh and surely soap and water would have been a better choice
In the words of Hagbard Celine ..
... Never Wrestle Where You Shave!
hail eris. fnord!
Oh really....
"(34-year-old female) PLAYING A GUITAR,STUMBLED,FELL BACKWARD ONTO UNCAPPED BEER BOTTLE ,WHCH CONTACTED PERINEAL AREA,BOTTLE INTACT DX: COMPLEX VAGINAL LAC"
Obviously fell over while doing the guitar power stance with no underwear on.
The least believable of the lot...
This was a US survey yet one victim claims to have dropped a "CAN OF VEGETABLES" on their toe. Surely they mean a can of cheese?
@Bassey
Cheese doesn't come in a tin. Artificial processed cheese-like substance comes in a tin. Sometimes manually smeared, sometimes dispensed with a pump, and sometimes in an aerosol dispensed varietal. Regardless, it's narsty. I don't know anyone who actually enjoys the stuff.
Signed: A. Yank
my own personal favourite...
was the English guy who they X-Rayed to find he had a pepper pot inside his bottom. It was later found to be inscribed "A Present From Margate".
Bar of soap?
"oh and surely soap and water would have been a better choice"
Nooooo! Back decades ago, while I was going to school, one of the people in the dorm tried that. She finally showed up at the campus health clinic blowing bubbles from where bubbles shouldn't be blown from! The original report is that she claimed she'd been in the shower and slipped, landing on a bar of soap. Later, it evolved that her boyfriend had uttered the phrase "You're nasty" immediately before grabbing a bar of soap! Whoopsie!
"Name withheld"
In New York City...
...the major proportion of hand lacerations are "Bagel Related."
Bagle related lacerations ...
Known as "Sunday Morning Syndrome" at Stanford's ER ...
Oysters
In France the biggest cause for Christmas ER visits is stabbed hands from inept attempts to open oysters. Those are tough buggers, and oyster knives are sharp...
Tears to your eyes.
For those really into wincing... search "Nipple"
willies
Just try a simple search for penis. :(
(18-year-old male) "HAND *** TO PENIS" - I'm just wondering what the missing work is to make this an injury
(11-year-old male) "STATES HE ACCIDENTLY HIT HIMSELF IN GROIN WITH BACKPACK FULL OF BOOKS AT HOME"
(15-year-old male) "PT HAD A PENCI L IN POCKET WHILE PLAYING BASKETBALL & FELL CAUSING PENCIL TO CUT PENIS"
I think this could be the same guy, with his elaborate sports excuses:
(15-year-old male) "RASH ON PENIS-HEAT EXPOSURE WHILE PLAYING FOOTBAL-@ SCHOOL"
(27-year-old male) "REPORTS ACCIDENTALLY WHILE LIGHT A CIGGRETTED THIS MORNING THE LIGHTER CAUGHT BOXES [boxers] ON FIRE ... PENIS>>BURN"
"47YOM WAS HOME BENDING A *** POLE OF A TENT ,TENT POLE SLIPPED WENT THROUGH PANTS STRIKING PENIS"
(19-year-old male) "PT WAS GETTING OUT OF SHOWER AND AND WAS CLEANING IT AND SPILLED BLEACH ONTO PENIS" - it could happen to any of us. Perhaps it was very dirty
(35-year-old male) "PT WAS AT HOME, GETTING HOT COFFEE OUT OF A DRIP COFFEE MAKER AND PUT I T IN A CUP WHEN IT SPILLED CAUSING PARTIAL THICKNESS" - ooh arousing.
To be honest, sometimes the simple ones are the most believable, you don't need an elaborate excuse:
(29-year-old male) "FELL OFF TOILET"
What a relief!
Thankfully I didn't have my orifice-cramming, nail gun-related ER visit until 2009. It would be terribly embarrassing to have that out on the internet.
Re the baseball
Someone should tell that bloke he's got it the wrong way round. The idea is to get the wood in the hole, and keep the balls out of the hole.
"Badgers" because they know all about what should and shouldn't go down holes.
America automates everything
American industry (they still have one unlike Britain) tries like crazy to convert the home owner/D-I-Y enthusiast into a domesticated trades person.
In the past few years they have introduced some quite lethal nailing devices.
I was in a Buffalo, New York handyman superstore and located the nailgun I had but not the strips of nails.
On inquiring of a helper I was told that staples, nails, etc that fit power tools are kept with the bullets (for guns) as an employer had been struck by a projectile from a power tool that was being 'checked out' by a prospective buyer.
You want a hammer? We have a power hammer you might like!
Automatic hammer
Well it takes some skill to use a hammer properly _and _ with reasonable speed. Probably the simpler-yet-most-misused tool ever. The nailgun is easier -and safer- to use. I still prefer the good ol' hammer myself.
And wood pieces are held together with pegs and/or mortise and tenon, not large ugly frigging nails anyway. Nails are only (borderly) acceptable in the teensy weensie headless variety for small ornamental pieces. But barely.
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